Silver slammed the table to startle Calliope. Best to catch these dames off guard.

"We already know Ullie couldn't have done it. Who else was on the take, eh?"

Tepha shot Silver a confused look and Silver realized she needed to dial things back a bit. She leaned back and softened her voice a few notches.

"What I mean is who else would want Relen dead. We don't know this is about your little side project. Was he sleeping with anyone? Did he owe anyone on the crew money? Was he angling to take anyone's job?"

In reply to Silver (msg # 37):

Calliope jumps a bit in her seat like a shuttle with only the port side thrusters firing.

"I...I dunno. Relen is...I mean was...the director.  The only job higher than his was Ulie's.

"I...don't think he was sleeping with anyone.  He wasn't sleeping with me.  Honestly...he kinda struck me as being asexual. More about getting his movie made than anything else."

She thinks. "The crew does do a lot of gambling. I don't...I don't join them or anything. So I don't know for sure. But I think he did. Relen I mean.  I think he gambled with them.  I saw him sitting in on one of the games once."

She glances back and forth between the two of you Tepha and Silver.  "I don't...I don't know anything else.

"Uhm...do you know if the footage for the movie...his movie. Not Ulie's...Do you know if it's alright?"

Silver paused and looked at Tepha who shrugged.

"We're still checking on that. Alright one last question. What were you doing on 4/16 at approximately 1:15pm?"

Then as a follow up Silver scrutinized Calliope.

"Did you notice anyone acting suspicious? Hanging around Ullie when they shouldn't or poking at her phone?"

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 39):

Calliope blinks.  "I don't remember exactly...I think I would either have been shooting a scene or in the cast tent.

"Hanging around Ulie? I mean...we were all hanging around each other all day.  Oh!  Wait.  I do remember hearing someone saying something...I think it was Levit.  He said something about Ullie's phone.  But I...sorry. I don't remember exactly what it was.  Oscar and Gosh were talking really loud and I couldn't quite hear Levit."

She doesn't seem to be lying.  Then again, she is an actor.

The dame was a dead end but nobody expected the femme fatale to give up the goods on the opening salvo. They had their lead, Levit, and they would run it down. Maybe they would catch Calliope in a lie but she seemed cool as ice and not likely to melt until they turned up the heat to eleven.

"Alright then. For now consider yourself confined to quarters until we can guarantee your safety. We'll have arrangements for meals if it looks like this will take awhile."

Once Calliope was shuffled back to her quarters it was time to pull at the thread she had delivered by bringing in Levit for the same questioning.

In reply to Silver (msg # 41):

Levitt's all packed up like a ration of soy protein in the freezer.  The curvy red-head thaws him up like she must do to the Captain when it's nighty-night time.  Within an hour, Levitt's all toasty warm.  All that's missing is the footie PJs and a mug of cocoa spiked with a stiff bourbon.

He looks all shaky when he spots the freezer Relen was in.  Though parts of Relen are still in the freezer.  So maybe it should be said in present tense.

Whatever.  The square is all shook up.

"Wha-What? What's goin' on?"

You've taken him back to the common room.  Now it's time to beat a confession out of this pasty faced wanna be.

Silver hid her smirk. So Levitt was going to play hardball. Well she could play hardball too. Silver waited until the mark was seated before she suddenly sprang to her feet, slamming the table with both hands to startle Levitt.

"Cut the crap, Levitt. We know you planted the code to kill Relen. We got your prints all over. So let's dispense with the bullshit and move right onto the 'why'. Who paid you to kill Relan?

Keep in mind we're outside every jurisdiction known to mankind. If you want to make this hard, we can get fucking hard."

To prove her point she slapped  a giant fuck-off combat knife on the table. It wasn't pointed at anything in particular but gripped in Silver's hand she could send it slashing out with a flick of her wrist.

Next to Silver, Tepha's eyes went wide with fear. This had definitely not been discussed earlier...

In reply to Silver (msg # 43):

Levitt's chair goes backwards as he lurches away from the knife.  He cracks the back of his head on the floor but manages to crab walk his way away a bit.

"WhatwhatWHAT what?  I-Relen's dead?  What's goin' on?"

He stares at you Tepha.  "Please don't let the crazy lady kill me!"

He looks back at you Silver>  "You like weed right? I'll give you my weed!  Please!  I wanna live!"

Silver jabs a finger at Levitt.


"You'll live if I want you to live! TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW!"

She bangs the table a second time for dramatic effect.

Tepha tried her best to regain control of things. Levitt, meet the good cop.

"I think what my colleague here is trying to say is that Relen was murdered and because of what we have heard you've become a main suspect. We..."

She emphasized that last point but glancing over at  Silver with a stern look.

"...won't be torturing you but you need to understand we have dealt with saboteurs before. If you don't cooperate with us I don't know what is going to happen so your best path forward is to be open and honest. If you have some kind of issue with Relen or even if you were paid to kill him that is fine. Well, not fine but at least we will know you won't be a danger to the ship or anyone else. If you lie or try to lie to us while I'm not a fan of it, it is safer and easier for everyone on board to just shove you out of an airlock. Please don't let it come to that. Take a breath and tell us everything. Where you were and what you did during the shoot. We've already done other interviews so make sure you stick to the truth. Everyone else has been very cooperative. We're not here to bust you for weed or even to pass judgement over murder. We just need to know what happened and why so we know the rest of the ship will be protected."

There were a mixture of lies and truths in there but overall Tepha was trying to be as honest and open as possible. If Ledo decided someone was too much trouble than it was easier to just space them. The risk of other sabotages like explosives hidden in the luggage or some kind of unknown hacking ability meant it might be too dangerous to even just hold them in the brig. Hopefully her calm and careful tone would keep Levitt from panicking too much.

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 46):

Levitt does calm down...a little.  He talks to you Tepha, but still keeps shooting timid glances at Silver

"I don't really know what you're talking about. I didn't have any problem with Relen. I mean...yeah. He was kind of artsy fartsy and kept tellin' me he wanted Calliope to shimmer innocently and stuff like that.  Vague directions from the director are always kinda irritating, ya know? Like if you're captain just said "oh, let's just go to that star on the left" or something.

"But I've worked with much worse. I sure as hell had no reason to want him dead.

"As to what I was doing during the shoot...I mean. My job. I did the make up.  Helped Oscar run the sound checks.  Watched the power feeds for Gosh.  Patched up the tears in Ergan's costume.  The stuff I always do on set.  I don't know what this code is you guys are talking about."

Silver started to pull up the knife but Tepha laid a hand across her arm.

"Alright, so you were doing what you always did. Walk us through the shoot. Did you see anything odd? Didi you notice anyone acting suspicious? Did you see anyone hanging around Ullie or spending too much time on their hand terminal?"

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 48):

Levitt wipes a palm over one eye and nods slowly after a moment.

"Uhmmm...lemme think.

"We got the scenes shot pretty much on schedule.  I remember Oscar and Gosh were arguin' about something.  I think Oscar owes a lotta money.  He keeps asking Ulie for advances on his salary.  No.  Wait a minute."

He frowns.  "No.  Gosh was angry cos Oscar had paid off the debt.  Which I didn't really get. Why would you get angry at a guy for that?  But...not my business.

"Lemme think.  Wisco and Ulie had an argument.  They don't get along.  But he did say she would be sorry about not casting him or something."  Levitt thinks a moment.  "Wisco's kinda had some bad roles lately.  And I think he wants to be in the next movie Ulie is slated to produce.  She kinda thinks he's washed up. I dunno."

He's quiet a moment longer and then absently nods. "Oh.  Yeah.  Now that I think about it, I did see her comm.  Maybe.  Anyway, I was gettin' some cord to patch a new feed for Gosh.  I was in the supply tent and I saw a comm sitting on the parts table.  I mean...it coulda been hers.  I don't really pay much attention to her stuff unless it has to do with my paycheck, y'know?"

He looks at both of you, ending with you Tehpa.  "Did I do good? Is the scary lady gonna cut me now?"

Silver narrowed her eyes and then stood up.

"You've told me something new, something that will let you go another round of interrogation. We'll be sticking you into the brig so we can cooberate your story. Tepha, wake up Gosh. Time to see if what he was saying matches up."

Why couldn't someone just confess? That would make things like this so much easier. Time to wake up another popsicle and see if they can give her anything new to use.

Gosh seems a little more together than Levitt.  He's one of those who comes out of deep freeze cranky, but he's not stupid enough to get snippy.

He sits at the table, glancing at the both of you Tepha and Silver.  He frowns when he hears the news.

"Really? Relen's dead?  Shit.  Guy owed me some credits too.

"You don't think I did it, do you?  I'd have no reason to.  Dead guys can't pay you back wages, now can they?  And he still owes me for shooting on his little side project."

Across the table, Silver cracked her knuckles.

"This goes a lot faster for everyone if you cut the bullshit. Didn't Relen pay you back already?"

In reply to Silver (msg # 52):

"Relen?  Pay me back?

"He paid us some for the side gig, yeah.  But not everything.  He was paying us on installments like.  And we each had some shares in the movie he was making."

Gosh shrugs.  "It's a good script.  Not sayin' I was thinking it'd be a major system blockbuster.  But Relen was gonna enter it into some contests.  And I think it's got a good chance at winning some prize money.  Also Relen said he had a publicity stunt lined up for it.  Would guarantee a way to generate some buzz.  So we figured, why not take him up on his offer.  We were gonna be filmin' on a movie anyway.  If there was a chance for an extra payday, why not.

"But I guess that ain't happenin' now.  So no.  Relen didn't pay us.  Or at least not me."

Tepha had seen Silver flail around long enough to step forward before Silver could begin brandishing weapons and threatening murder.

"Thanks for letting us know. If there is anything else you can think of that would be great otherwise we have more people to talk to."

Next to her Silver bristled at her show being cut early but at least held her tongue long enough for Gosh to be sorted out. As Silver began thawing out the next crew member Tepha put a stop to her.

"Stop. Stop! What are we doing here? What are you looking for? None of them are going to just confess to murdering him and unless we can dig up video footage nobody was paying attention enough to say they saw so and so playing around on Ullie's phone.

We're coming about this at the wrong angle. Let's run down the list and figure out who was even capable of doing this in the first place."

She pulls up the index of their passengers

"Calliope, Ergan, and Wisco don't scream 'tech genius assassin' to me. They're actors.

Levit does make up. Again not exactly prime suspect, right? Relen is dead so that leaves Zen, Oscar, and Gosh."

Silver gave a shrug.

"Or Relen. They said he was looking for a publicity stunt and getting murdered for his expose would definitely put his name out there."

She paused.

"Alright let's focus on Oscar next then. At least he has motive and means so I guess he should be a priority."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:57, Fri 28 Jan 2022.

In reply to Silver (msg # 55):

Oscar wakes up groggy.  Tepha,, you recall he did so previously.  He's one of those low berth passengers who don't really come out of cryo until their second cup of coffee.

He rubs his head at the news.  "Relen's dead? How'd that happen?"

Tepha took the lead this time, trying her best to hold back Silver from enacting yet another unhinged detective noir bad cop one-woman show.

"One of the camera androids was programmed using Ullie's phone to kill him based on a timer or condition. We've been interviewing everyone and, well, a lot of roads are pointing at you. Several others told us what they heard between you and your brother arguing about money. We also know that you were in the area when Ullie left her comms unattended. You had the opportunity, you had experience with the androids enough to do a simple program, and we've got a line on possible motive as a fight over payments. I want to help you, I really do, but you have to understand the history of this ship. We have had several instances of assassins and saboteurs bringing their conflicts onto this ship and as a result the rest of the crew does not take kindly to even the suspicions of sabotage. We don't have any care about what problems you had with the other passengers or what deals you cut, we are more worried about the safety of the ship so it is very important that you tell us everything. Be open and be honest now because if we catch lies and subterfuge later on the punishments might end up getting a bit more permanent. Right now the guilty culprit is going to be confined to the brig until we arrive at our destination. If this becomes a thing however the guilty party might end up leaving the ship, one way or another, long before we reach our final destination."

Tepha holds out a hand to help calm Oscar down.

"I don't want it to get that far. We don't want it to get that far so all you have to do is be open and honest and everything will work itself out. So first question, point blank. Did you use Ullie's comm?"

Oscar puts his hands up, palms facing you both.

"Whoa! Whoa!  Slow that afterburn!  I didn't kill the guy!  I mean...yeah.  He owed me some creds.  But not that much!  Hell, me an' Gosh figured our payday on his side project would be when he won that contest thing.

"No I didn't use her comm. Well.  Not since we've been on board the ship.  She used to have me upload stills from the movie...you know.  Her movie...but that was before we got on board!  And there's no way I coulda messed with her comm!  She changes the password every freakin' day!  It was a pain in the ass when I was doing that still work for her!  I'd have to ask her or Relen every fuckin' time what the passcode was!  She told me to stop with the still work cos the studio heads weren't even lookin' at 'em any more! Ask her if you don't believe me!"

He shakes his head.  "No one coulda got on her comm unless they had her passcode.  And I haven't known what it is for at least a month!"

Tepha nodded and rubbed her chin.

"So you're saying that Relen might have known her password as well? But isn't it also true that while you were doing still work you could have installed some malware to get access as well? Ullie was complaining about comm troubles around the same time as the killer codes was added."

In reply to Tepha Pezal (msg # 59):

Oscar frowns.  "You mean...I planned this like...months back?  Hell no.  How would I know we'd be takin' your ship and that Relen would be in deep freeze back then?

"And I don't know nothin' about her comm not working.  Go ask her about it why don'tcha?"

---

Checking the analysis that Fritz and Rig ran:

The problems Ulie was having with it was due to a virus that got uploaded to the phone a day before the shoot in question.  It was a simple bug designed to mimic a technical glitch.  It's a common practice run by dishonest software shops.  They'll spam viruses like that out on a broadcast to passers by, hoping someone will think their comm is on the fritz and head inside the store to either get a repair or buy a new comm.

The comm's camera was turned off.  So no way to tell who entered the program causing the android to run wild.  But it was definitely entered by someone who knew Ulie's passcode.  There's no signs anyone hacked in or overran the security barrier.

The program was entered in the day of the shoot.  About four hours into shooting.  From what <puple>Ledo</purple> recalls and the time table that can be worked out, it was sometime after Ulie borrowed Ledo's comm but before Gosh saw her comm on the supply parts table.

The footage of the film is still in the android, yes.  But it was downloaded the night after the shoot was done.

Hey Tepha!  I just found this.  It's from Mr. Relen.  It's a message that's tagged to get sent out after we exit Jump.

It's a message to the board running the film contest.  It's an entry form and a completed copy of his secret film.

He named the film Beauty is Cold

Gosh was put back into waiting with the others as the crew regrouped to go over the details.

"Alright, let's see what we have here..."

Silver gave her (very) colorful opinion about the interrogation with Tepha helping keep things on track. Rig delivered his and Fritzs findings of their tech analysis and Ledo put down the facts as he saw them.

"So someone who knew the password and understood the androids put in the program, didn't wipe the footage, and then it was automatically set up to enter the contest, is that right?"

Ledo rubbed his chin and then started shaking his head.

"That motherfucker. Think about it. If someone from Sang Rael or someone else was upset about that video being created they would have killed Relen and wiped the footage. Think about it. You're an operative, what do you do? You just quietly corrupt all the footage they gathered, right?

But no, the footage is going to be released and Relen's death is going to draw that much more attention to it. I...I think he killed himself."

The rest of the crew gave him varying looks of skepticism.

"Hear me out. Someone had to know Ullie's password and that narrows it down to three people according to the interviews: Ullie, Relen, and Gosh. According to Rig, by that point Ullie had switched comms and Gosh claims he no longer had access. Now maybe someone is covering their tracks but there are more subtle ways to kill someone than a messy android beating them to death. In addition he had already set up automatic entry into the contest.

Again that could be coincidence as he knew he would be in cryo sleep at this point but the android that someone had hacked for murder still has the video on it. So either he was murdered by someone who wants to publish that video, someone who didn't care about it either way, or he killed himself.

Now so far the only real motive I'm hearing could be over money but if they were about to win a contest or get a bunch of publicity for this video it would be a poor time to kill the potential golden goose, right?

I...I think he killed himself."

The crew debated about this for awhile. Tepha seemed uncommitted but ended up siding with her boyfriend anyway. Silver was convinced that it was Gosh. BB thought it was one of the Duchess operatives seeing as how they had already shown off to be expert infiltrators (they came onto the ship for a reason...) leaving Rig as the last vote as he didn't have any new theories to float.

"Listen...I...let's just assume it wasn't someone living on the ship and put everyone back to where they belong, okay? We aren't cops and this isn't really our problem anymore."

"Well, there is another important part that we tell. What do we tell the public? People are going to ask questions when the director of this bombshell turns up dead."

PR Tepha piped up now that it was more in her wheelhouse.

"Well, we should tell people the truth."

"Yeah but what is that truth? Are we completely positive he killed himself?"

"...good point. We could call it an unfortunate accident in transit."

"...leaving us with a bigger body trail. People might notice we're consistently showing up light on passengers."

"Could still have been murder."

"Right. Alright let's pro and con this. If we tell people he killed himself that will paint him as a crazy artist. It will draw publicity to the movie but it will become very muddled. If we tell people he was murdered or even hint at it through a 'tragic accident' angle it is going to cause his work to become that much more believable. His death might be the closer, so to speak, on getting public opinion to swing towards justice. I imagine if he killed himself that was the point."

"So, you're saying we can sway public opinion? Makes sense. Alright. Okay..."

Ledo was mostly just talking to himself as he formulated his next line of thinking.

"So do we put our finger on the scales...I guess that's the question, right?"

"I don't think it's a choice. I mean, if we don't say anything that is saying something...right?"

When the others gave her a quizzical look she shook her head and clarified.

"Sorry. What I mean is if we don't say anything that is going to push people one way. We don't have a choice, we are part of the narrative now so anything we do will alter things."

"A vote then? Not on who killed Relen but who we tell people did? I'd rather just tell the truth, dump the evidence we gathered and be done with it."

"Technically speaking, saying 'someone killed him' would be accurate even if he offed himself. What? Don't look at me like that. I'm just saying...technically true."


With a sigh Ledo rubbed his eyes. Since the attack he had been combing the ship for signs of any other sabotage, especially along the path that the Ducheess's infiltrator had taken and was just as tired as the rest of the crew.

"Alright, a vote then. We can say he was murdered to make people believe his stuff more. We can say it was an accident that probably won't do much either way, or we say he killed himself and it probably makes people think less of his work because he was crazy.

So let me just say, Sang Rael is bad. Really bad. They have been doing awful things behind the shadows of the Empire for years. Now it is possible they are working with pirates to do...something. This could really hurt them and if public opinion helps bring justice to the death of Nero's cousin then....I say we say that he was murdered. Maybe even go so far as to say he was likely killed because of the movie."

This came as a surprise to the rest of the crew as they had expected Ledo to stick to his 'tell the truth' routine. Playing dirty politics and spin wasn't his style but he seemed to really believe that pushing this footage was the right thing to do. Nobody could offer up any serious debate otherwise, except for Rig who half-heartedly suggested they should stay out of it entirely. In the end the crew unanimously decided to go with the murder angle.

"Alright lets finish this. Tepha, go tell the rest of the production crew that while Relen was murdered it was done while they were planetside so the murderer most likely isn't around anymore. We are still working on a motive but nobody else should be in danger.

I'll draft up a memo to the film festival explaining that the director was most likely killed to try and stop his film from being released."

Tepha shook her head.

"No, don't send it now. Wait until the film is aired. If they hear that now they might pull it."

Ledo thought about it for a second and then nodded and corrected himself.

"Right. I'll send it out when it airs. Maybe to the press as well? Tepha, when you talk to the film crew tell them to keep quiet until we get everything sorted out.

Silver, BB, Rig, we need to get that cyropod fixed and cleaned up.

Fritz, can you compile our evidence. The witness testimonies, the tech reports you and Rig created and also include any footage you have for when our ship was broken into by the Duchess' agent. Don't mention the Duchess but put that into our report as a possible culprit. We can use that as part of our release saying that a few days prior to murder our ship was breached by a highly skilled unknown agent. We fought them off but it seems possible they implanted the kill code then. Also....include any security camera footage we have of the attack itself. If we want to make it sensational...that will definitely do it."


So in conclusion:

1) Tell the film crew they are safe now and not to talk to anyone as we are working with law enforcement to hand over the investigation.

2) When the film airs, send out a packet of Ledo's "truthful but selectively edited" report that Relen was killed by an unknown agent and it was likely because of his film targeting very powerful people.

3) Included in that report is the raw data, testimonies, tech reports, and footage from the infiltrator from earlier showing them breaking in and Ledo shooting them and then leading them off the ship. No footage of them talking to the duchesses people. Also included is the footage (if available) of the android killing Relen.